When it comes to League of Legends, China is one of the strongest regions in the world. But their premiere league, the LPL, is having its English broadcast shut down in 2025.
With teams like BLG and Weibo consistently making their mark at internationals for the past few years, there’s no doubt that China is the only region that can contest South Korea at LoL’s biggest competitions.
However, interest from Western fans has waned. The sheer number of game days combined with time zone issues has made it very difficult to keep up with the league for all but the most dedicated. Average viewership hovered just under 10k for most of the regular season on the main broadcast, with co-streamers holding a large portion of the fanbase in their own streams.
As a result, Riot have decided to shut down the official broadcast in English and give the keys to co-streamers instead. The LPL itself isn’t going anywhere, but the broadcast is gone.
Even IWDominate, one of the biggest co-streamers in League of Legends, was saddened by the change, and he stands to benefit from it. Now people who want to watch matches will have to go to him or others who choose to co-stream.
Many of the biggest names in other broadcasts like Dagda, Emily Rand, Raz, and Aux started in the LPL, and it’s now being unceremoniously shut down in an announcement tweet.
However, many took issue with the way it was framed as being good for fans, as pointed out by League caster Cubby.
“Nothing about this is good for fans, it’s a cheap *** ‘solution’,” he claimed. He’d go on to explain that this change would give co-streamers a worse product to work off of, with them now being forced to come up with every section of the broadcast themselves.
“Voices and people dedicated to following and crafting storylines for the players in your language are out of a job,” he replied to a fan who thinks this change may be a positive one.
Dagda, a caster who went from working in the LPL to being an LEC mainstay and a caster at Worlds 2024, had this to say:
“To say I’m heartbroken is an understatement. Some of my fondest memories in my career are casting the LPL with my best friends.”
And, though the other major regions still have their broadcasts intact, it remains to be seen whether or not Riot takes more measures to cut costs.
This change could be partially due to the LPL being in a bad way financially, with roster leaks claiming that one of the teams will likely have to exit and that others have had to spend significantly less on securing players.
